NEWS

when do states disrupt industries? electric cars and the politics of innovation

When do states forge technological change in mature industries? [...] We examine this argument in the case of electric vehicle policy in Germany and the United States. Germany failed to disrupt its auto sector to transition to electric vehicles, while the United States adopted comprehensive policies for the manufacturing and commercialization of electric cars against incumbent opposition.

the power of process: state capacity and climate policy

State capacity is central to the provision of public goods, including environmental protection. Drawing on climate policy making, this article argues that the division of labor between the bureaucracy and legislature in policy formulation is a critical source of state capacity. It compares climate policy in California and Germany.

policy sequencing toward decarbonization

Low-carbon leaders such as California and the European Union have followed a distinct policy sequence that helps overcome some of the political challenges facing low-carbon policy by building economic interest groups in support of decarbonization and reducing the cost of technologies required for emissions reductions. However, while politically effective, this policy pathway faces significant challenges to environmental and cost effectiveness, including excess rent capture and lock-in...

who wins in renewable energy? evidence from europe and the United States

The emerging transition to renewable energy, such as wind and solar photovoltaics, creates winners and losers in electricity markets. The political battle unfolds largely between incumbent electric utilities on the one hand and challenger firms such as independent power producers on the other. Here, we provide the first cross-national study of renewable energy ownership, based on an original dataset of fifty-nine jurisdictions in Europe and the United States.

protecting solar: global supply chains and business power

Governments invested substantially in renewable energy industries in responding to climate change, while seeking to promote economic growth. They also engaged in a series of major trade disputes, notably in the solar photovoltaic and wind sectors...

Globalizing solar: global supply chains and trade preferences

Global production is increasingly organized through supply chains made up of firms that specialize in specific stages of production. This raises an important question: how does firms’ participation in global supply chains affect their trade preferences?

the developmental state in global regulation: economic change and climate policy

What are the origins of global regulation? This article proposes that the developmental state — the state investing in economic development — can be a source of global environmental regulation. Through industrial policy, the developmental state can promote structural economic change in polluting sectors that supports global regulatory policy in two ways...

the politics of renewable energy trade: the us-china solar dispute

The Chinese and US governments played significant roles in the development of renewable energy industries, seeing them as key growth sectors and crucial to addressing climate change. While the US and China cooperated in renewable energy development, since 2011 the countries have engaged in a protracted and major trade dispute in the solar photovoltaics industry...

varieties of market-based policy: instrument choice in climate policy

Since the 1970s, European and US regulators have used different varieties of market-based environmental policy, which are rooted in competing types of liberalism: price instruments and quantity instruments, respectively. In the case of climate change, however, the EU and the US have converged on hybrid policy mixes. This convergence in instrument choice is examined in two cases: the emergence of the EU Emission Trading Scheme, i.e. the import of quantity regulation to the EU; and the creation of California’s feed-in tariff, i.e. the import of price regulation to the US...

oil and state capitalism: government-firm coopetition in china and india

This paper examines the domestic sources of the internationalization of national oil companies (NOCs) in China and India. It argues that – counter to notions of state-led internationalization – the going abroad of NOCs reflects a pattern of ‘coopetition,’ i.e., the co-existence of cooperation and conflict between increasingly entrepreneurial NOCs and partially supportive and interventionist home governments.

Journal article, ScienceThe gap is wide between the implications of climate science and the achievements of climate policy. Natural sciences tell us with increasing certainty that climate change is real, dangerous, and solvable; social sciences report that key constituencies largely support action. But current and planned policy remains weak and will allow a long-term increase in temperature of 3.6°C. How can we address the gap between science and policy?

Free Trade for Green Trade: To support clean power, open up trade in green technology

In the run-up to the Paris talks at the end of the year, governments are preparing their strategies to negotiate national emissions reduction targets. But elsewhere, a different battle is unfolding as firms and governments compete to try to capture the benefits of the rise of the new green economy. A wave of trade disputes in clean energy industries is one result. Since 2010, at least 11 such cases have been initiated. Trade cases in solar photovoltaics, in particular, have emerged as some of the most politically charged in recent history...

What explains the choice of corporate political strategy in environmental politics? Drawing on recent models of actor strategy formation in political economy, this article argues that basic material interests of firms are translated into strategies in the context of institutional environments. I advance a typological model that posits how distributional effects—positive versus negative—and perceived regulatory pressure—low versus high—interact in leading firms to adopt one of four ideal-type ﻿strategies: opposition, hedging, support, and non-participation...

the future of emissions trading

Over the past 15 years, carbon markets have been set up by private and public actors at various geographic scales and with varying financial scope. The history of the early stage of carbon markets reveals a mixed record: the instrument diffused widely across the globe, while existing carbon markets performed rather slow, though anecdotal evidence suggests positive side effects on climate policymaking. Going forward, three key driving forces are likely to shape the future of emissions trading...

Avoiding sunstroke: assessing national competitiveness in the global solar race

The report, “Avoiding Sunstroke: Assessing National Competitiveness in the Global Solar Race,” reflects the conclusions of some 20 top executives of solar companies from five countries who met at Stanford for an unusual day-long scenario-planning exercise to try to answer a crucial question about the small but rapidly growing solar industry: What will it look like in 2025? Which sorts of companies, and which countries, will do what?

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.

Meckling explains how a transnational coalition of firms and a few market-oriented environmental groups actively promoted international emissions trading as a compromise policy solution in a situation of political stalemate. The coalition sidelined not only environmental groups that favored taxation and command-and-control regulation but also business interests that rejected any emissions controls. Considering the sources of business influence, Meckling emphasizes the importance of political opportunities (policy crises and norms), coalition resources (funding and legitimacy,) and political strategy (mobilizing state allies and multilevel advocacy).

Meckling presents three case studies that represent milestones in the rise of carbon trading: the internationalization of emissions trading in the Kyoto Protocol (1989–2000); the creation of the EU Emissions Trading System (1998–2008); and the reemergence of emissions trading on the U.S. policy agenda (2001–2009). These cases and the theoretical framework that Meckling develops for understanding the influence of transnational business coalitions offer critical insights into the role of business in the emergence of market-based global environmental governance.